5 Detective Novels Magazine Cover — page 79: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Below the Border: “Don’t call me mister. The name is Sam Mead. You want to rent a plane for a charter trip. I’ve got a plane to rent for a charter trip. But I usually like to khow where I’m going first.” “That,” said the man in the Homburg, “will be explained after we get into the air. 1—” “it ll be explained before we get in the air,” Sam Mead cut in. * He was about to decide that maybe he didn’t need the money as badly as he thought. He didn’t like the superior at- titude of the man, his obvious arrogance, the color of his skin, the set of his shoul- ders. And by now he positively ab- horred that Homburg. A man just didn’t have any sense wearing one any place. The girl in the car stirred and got out, followed by her companion. She was about twenty-two and had plenty of shape and complexion and blond hair. Some guys, he thought, get all the breaks. This lean, dapper bird with her was really going to get a run for his money and maybe a million or so to call it off when her irate parents caught up with her. The freight line tycoon, ac- cording to the papers, had every police outfit in the West on the lookout for her, with twenty-five thousand in cash for the man who brought her back. Sam shifted his glance to her left hand. No wedding ring as yet. They prob- ably hadn’t had time to hunt up a justice of the peace. Papa, in his twin-engined Beechcraft executive job, probably was burning the breeze toward the town a few hundred miles north of Mead’s air- Peril, Intrigue, Kidnaping! port, where, the papers said, the char- tered plane from the East had come down in a foreed landing and the girl had been recognized. The sardonic side in Mead came to the fore. He still sat there in the chair and made no move to get up. Probably the Homburg, he thought. The girl looked at Sam. “Please, Mr. Smead—” she began agitatedly. “Mead,” he corrected her. “Mr. Mead, we’re in a terrible hurry. Won’t you get started?” “I’m ready to go any time. It’s your friend, there, in the gosh-awful hat, Miss Horton. “So you recognize me?” EAD let go a half snort and jerked his head toward the crumpled paper at his feet. “You must have had a good photographer. They even ran _ one of you, lying on your stomach, in the nude. You were eight months old when it was taken.” The ex-chauffeur—the papers said his name was Roy Duval—moved forward then, his fists clenched at his sides until the knuckles showed white. His face turned red in sudden anger. Somehow, Sam, now grinning sardon- ically. didn’t blame him. Mv nerves would be a bit short, too, he thought, if I had that and a lot of dough to boot just within grasp. “Now, look here,” the ex-chauffeur beran angrily. Rut Helen Horton laid a slim hand on his arm. | “Please, Roy,” she said. “Let me han- dle this. Mr. Mead, we left New York yesterday in a chartered plane, after I’d left a note for my parents about eloping with Roy. I never dreamed they’d be so angry or take such drastic steps. We had a forced landing at night on an Army emergency field and stayed in an auto court until this morning. “T heard over the radio in my cabin that Dad had got the news flashed to him and was on the way straight through in his big twin-engined plane. 79 CoOMmicooo <<) (C(O)